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RED DEER — Premier Alison Redford received a strong endorsement from the Progressive Conservative Party in Red Deer Saturday to carry on the job of building Alberta and opening new markets for its oil products.

In a mandatory leadership review, 77 per cent of delegates voted not to hold an election for a new premier.

During the lead-up to the vote, held by secret ballot Friday night and Saturday morning, Redford refused to reveal the percentage of vote she felt she needed to hold onto the party reins.

A maximum of 1,250 delegates were eligible to vote, including Conservative Members of Parliament and 15 delegates from each of the province’s 87 riding associations. Of the 1,197 votes were cast, 920 voted to avoid a leadership election.

Redford was greeted with raucous cheers as she entered the ballroom for the announcement.

Earlier in the day, the premier accused the Wildrose of fearmongering and dividing communities by undermining her government’s flood recovery efforts and needlessly scaring landowners over property rights legislation.

After avoiding any mention of the official opposition in her speech to 1,500 party members Friday, she blasted them — although not by party name — Saturday in an open-to-media event at the closed-door Progressive Conservative annual general meeting.

“One thing that this opposition has done throughout this flood issue is they have tried to politicize it,” she said. “They tried to tear people down, they tried to undermine and pit community against community and what we’re seeing over and over again is that people don’t want that. They want to see leaders and government and community and volunteer organizations pitch together to help people that need help.”

She said that’s what her government and PC party members have done.

“Being good neighbours matters,” she said.

Redford, who is subject to a leadership review secret ballot vote at the convention, also chided the Wildrose for suggesting to Albertans before the last election 18 months ago that provincial government legislation eroded their property rights.

“That’s absolutely not anything we have ever done as Progressive Conservatives, nor will we ever do it,” she said.

She challenged anyone in the audience to come forward with an example of that happening.

But the premier for the first time appeared to concede her government may have made some mistakes during the first half of its mandate.

“There is no government ever that gets everything absolutely right, right off the mark,” she said. “In fact, if any government thinks that they can do that, they are just being arrogant.”

She said her PC government has to continuously evolve and change and respond and listen to what people are telling it.

Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson said the premier looks and acts small as a result of the way she treated Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith during the flood.

“The Premier’s distasteful treatment of Danielle during the flooding shows a person who lacks self-confidence and who sees Danielle not as a local MLA needing help for her flooded constituents, but a political threat who must be marginalized and undermined at every turn,” he said. “The fact that the popularity of the premier fell since the flooding while Mayor (Naheed) Nenshi’s skyrocketed speaks volumes. The Premier ought to learn from that.”

Redford cautioned delegates that the party will have to work hard at the grassroots level to win the next election.

“It’s not just the right policy; it’s not just the right government commitments,” she said. “It is us as members of our party feeling confident and proud of who we are together and that’s what’s going to lead to success in 2016.”

Party officials said 925 of 1,250 eligible delegates have registered to vote on whether they want to hold a leadership contest.

Results of the vote are expected to be released this afternoon.

Party members seemed confident a high percentage of voting delegates would endorse Redford’s leadership by voting ‘no’ despite the party’s low standing in the popularity polls and the premier’s sagging personal popularity.

Former Lethbridge MLA and Klein-era cabinet minister Clint Dunford said he came to the convention to vote in support of Redford, whom he praised for her focus on building greatly needed infrastructure.

The property rights issue had a major political impact in southern Alberta, with Dunford’s former Lethbridge riding now surrounded by Wildrose MLAs. He acknowledged that rebuilding the party in the area will take time.

“I think it’s going to take longer than two years actually ... there’s a lot of work to be done,” he said.

Dunford said the government has a communications problem but says it stretches back to his time in office.

“I could never figure out, why can’t we communicate with these folks. It isn’t nuclear physics and nobody is trying to do a bad job ... we just can’t figure out how to get our messages out in clear, plain language.

With files from James Wood, Calgary Herald

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